Cold Rain (3 page)

‘I might,’ he said, smiling. ‘If you’re sure it wouldn’t be a problem.’ He glanced in my direction – the problem.

Molly gave me a cool appraisal. ‘No problem at all.’

No problem she couldn’t handle, she meant.

‘YOU MIND ME ASKING YOU a personal question, Dave?’ Buddy asked, when we were alone.

I minded, but I was also curious. ‘What’s that?’

‘How did you get this place on a teacher’s salary?’

I laughed. ‘I thought you were going to ask me if I’m a jealous man.’

Buddy and I had walked out of the barn. He leaned against the grey boards of our old barn, so he was looking up the hill in the direction of our house, the direction Molly had taken. ‘I think I know the answer to that.’

‘My father was a car salesman,’ I said, stooping down and picking up some pebbles. ‘The guy they warn you about. Tubs could sell space heaters in hell.

Probably is, come to think of it. The old bastard could pitch any car he had to, but he’d only ride home in a Ford.
Any
Ford. A matter of principle, though what exactly the principle was, I never quite understood.

Anyway, back in the late seventies Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. The price of the stock was around three dollars and dropping by the hour.

Naturally, everyone at the car lot had an opinion. Tubs said he was looking for a comeback. He said the government wouldn’t let Chrysler sink. Now you have to understand, he was standing around a bunch of car salespeople who knew his prejudices and back in those days nobody but Lee Iacocca liked a Chrysler, so when he said that, they all laughed. I owe this farm to their laughter, Buddy.’ I tossed a few pebbles toward our kennel, emptied out for the occasion of the party, and let Buddy wait for my explanation.

‘You see, Tubs could be wrong about a thing. Get him off the car lot, he was as wrong about things as the next man, but one thing Tubs could not abide was another salesperson laughing at him. The minute they did he walked into his office and called his broker and bought five thousand shares. In those days that was about exactly what a new luxury Chrysler would cost, and that’s what he said when he came back out, “I just bought my first Chrysler, gentlemen, but thank the good Lord I don’t ever have to drive it!’’

‘This wasn’t entirely out of character, you understand. My old man was a plunger, a gambler. Give him a horse, a deck of cards, the right kind of auto-mobile, and Tubs could drop serious money if the inspiration hit him. And over the years, the inspiration hit him fairly regularly. The truth is Tubs lost a lot more than he won. Usually when he made the right decision he would go too light or bail out too early.

Good times never ran a full course at our house, let me tell you. The man could screw up the Second Coming, but his one great move after buying Chrysler’s stock was to die.’ Buddy blinked in surprise and I knew I had him.

‘The first few times the stock split even a smart trader would have considered locking in his gains, but my mother didn’t know about such things. In fact, she was actually a little nervous about Chrysler sending her the dividend checks. She knew Tubs couldn’t stand Chrysler, so the only thing she could figure was they were sending money to the wrong Albo.

‘My brothers had no idea any of this was going on.

Me? I was just a kid. Thirty years ago I barely knew the difference between a Ford and a Chrysler. She splurged a little on clothes and jewellery, bought a new car now and then, took a trip every year. Got a new house. We figured the old bastard had a ton of life insurance because Mom sure wasn’t telling anyone where the money came from. This went on for years, and then one day she asked my oldest brother what was going to happen to Chrysler now that it had been sold to Mercedes. My brother wanted to know why she was worried about something like that.’

I handed Buddy a smile that told him we were at the end of the story. ‘She told him how many shares she had of it, and the next day we had a family meeting.’

‘You got the farm with your share of the stock?’

‘The farm, this quarter horse, that paint gelding, the restoration on the house, Molly’s new Ford truck, my stepdaughter’s Toyota Highlander, her choice of colleges…the mother lode, Buddy.’

Buddy handed me back a grudging smile. ‘Son of a bitch.’

I gave my lottery-winner shrug. ‘We were lucky.’

‘You should have put that in
Jinx
!’

‘You read
Jinx
, did you?’

‘I read it this summer. To tell you the truth, the minute I finished it, I wanted to go out and sell cars.

Did your dad have names for every one of his closes, like
Jinx
?’

A close is the last step of the sale. It’s cash on the table, a signature on the line. Feast or famine for the salesperson. Tubs had pet names for every close he used: Forbidden Fruit, Love or Money, Take my Advice (because no one ever does), The Bible Close, The Colombo Close. Tubs had a hundred of them. As many as he had faces.

‘He did,’ I told Buddy. ‘At least that’s what they tell me. He died before I ever got to work with him.’

‘He carry a Bible in his hip pocket like
Jinx
?’

‘Son of a bitch wouldn’t walk on the lot without it! He might not use it for a week or two, but then he’d meet the right folks and at just the opportune moment Tubs would pull it out like a gun and tell his customers, ‘Everyone else carries a price book, but I carry
this
so I won’t be tempted to lie!’

Buddy grinned at me sceptically. ‘People didn’t see through that?’

Buddy Elder had read my book, but he had missed its essence. ‘Tubs meant it. That’s why it worked. Ever hear of a car salesman that wouldn’t tell a lie? That was Tubs. The George Washington of the Wastelands.

He could take all your money but he would never tell a lie while he was doing it. That was Tubs: the honest thief – a hell of a lousy epitaph, if you think about it.’

Buddy grew thoughtful. ‘I didn’t get that from the book.’

‘That’s good, because I didn’t put it in.’

‘Maybe you should have. If that’s the truth.’

‘I wrote another book about that. It’s up in a box in my closet.’

Buddy grinned, getting the point. ‘The one that’s true?’

‘Truth,’ I answered, ‘is a highly overrated virtue.’

Buddy Elder smiled at me as if he had found a kindred soul. ‘You think?’

‘We better get back to the party,’ I said. ‘And Buddy, if you’re thinking about coming out for a ride sometime… think again. It could be a real problem between you and me.’

‘I knew that, Dave.’

I gave him a wink and patted him on the shoulder.

‘Just so we understand one another.’

‘DID YOU MAKE AN ASS OUT OF yourself?’

Molly and I were standing in the pasture watching Dean Lintz wipe out a stretch of white board fence as he crashed through a shallow ditch. The party was still going, but it was winding down now. Only a few more drunken administrators to kick out and we were home free.

‘Nothing too serious,’ I answered. ‘Did Buddy make a pass?’

She had a private smile. ‘Not that you’d notice.’

‘I was afraid of that.’

‘Where did they find him, anyway?’

I shook my head. ‘I have no idea.’

‘You ought to write whoever sent him and ask for a dozen more. He’s… genuine.’

‘What did you two talk about… so intently?’

‘Horses... Lucy... restoring old houses. He’s run some rooftops. Did you know that?’

‘Barb Beery kicked Walt out,’ I answered. I was tired of the subject of Buddy Elder, irritated at Molly’s unrepentant affection for him.

Molly’s face twitched. ‘I heard. Quite a few times, actually.’

‘You hear why?’

‘Fooling around. Last straw. A stripper or something. Very...
Walt
, if you know what I mean?’

‘He tells me he quit drinking three days ago. Wants to go talk to her after a week and show her he can change.’

‘He can change brands, but that’s about all.’

I shook my head, marshalling a defence for my hapless friend. ‘He seemed pretty dedicated to the idea.’

‘David, a half hour ago I saw him out in the pasture with Randy Winston drinking vodka straight out of the bottle.’

‘That’s pathetic.’

‘I’d say it’s desperate.
Pathetic
is tiptoeing to the barn and spying on your wife.’

LUCY AND HER FRIEND KATHY Jones showed up in Kathy’s red Mustang convertible late that evening.

The top was down, and Lucy looked a good deal older than seventeen. It had been a good summer for her.

She had worked with Molly and me finishing up the house, and had got serious about her competition in barrel racing, sometimes pulling Jezebel to two or three races a week. In the course of the summer she had turned a trim, athletic body into hard ropey muscle.

About all that was left of her adolescence was a pony-tail. Physically, Lucy had her mother’s shoulders and legs and long sinewy back, but her face was round and sweetly intense, as only seventeen can be. Most people said otherwise. They said Lucy looked just like her mother, but it wasn’t so. Lucy had a beauty all her own. They looked alike because they shared the same mannerisms, the same stubbornness, the same passions. Lucy needed another decade or so before she could claim the kind of grace and confidence and beauty her mother possessed.

I cannot say I actually looked for Buddy Elder or consciously thought about him when Lucy showed up.

I only know he was there, standing in the shadows of the trees that surrounded our house.

‘How was the party?’ Lucy called out to us.

Molly said it was still going on.

‘Any food left?’

‘Plenty of caviar,’ I told her, very proud of myself for not skimping on the essentials.

Lucy’s pretty face screwed up into pure teen.

‘Anything good?’

I let her mother answer this and looked back in Buddy’s direction, but he was already gone.

Molly and I caught Kathy Jones before she could drive out of the circle and down the hill. I leaned against the door at about eye-level with the girl. Kathy was a new friend and not our favourite. She was pretty and popular and perfectly spoiled. She had dark hair in contrast to Lucy’s pale blonde locks, and she was built solidly with round cheeks and round buttocks and firm, thick thighs. She would be a senior in a week or so, like Lucy, but I guessed she was probably three years ahead by experience. That summer Kathy had been among the girls I had terrified with my casual narrative of a perfectly normal middle-aged man who had lived here when the place was cut apart into apartments and who, one night, had killed every soul in the house with an axe. It was a complete fiction, of course, but ever since then Kathy had trouble looking at me without wondering if I might be the next to come under the spell of the old house.

That wasn’t the reason for her nervousness tonight, however. Have a nice time? I asked her. Okay. Kathy looked like she wanted to pop the clutch. Find any parties as nice as this one? A few. Perfect evening for a drive with the top down, wasn’t it? It was okay.

I thanked her for bringing Lucy home safely and asked how her parents were doing. They were fine.

Was she looking forward to school? Not really. Kathy made short work of me, but Molly was a different story. Molly had learned her interrogation technique from the master, her mother Olga McBride. She wanted to know what they had done and
nothing
didn’t cut it. Every answer got a lawyerly follow up, all with a smile of course, leaning in close and friendly, just as I had done it.

When Kathy drove off, I looked at Molly and we both said at the same time, ‘Grass.’

‘YOU SAY SOMETHING,’ Molly told me that night as we lay together in bed. We had finished the business we started in the pantry, had worn ourselves out in our happiness, but were still wide awake. ‘She won’t listen to me about anything,’ Molly explained.

‘I’ll say something,’ I answered, ‘but I doubt it will do any good.’

‘What are you going to tell her? You can’t preach.

She knows we’ve both done it.’

‘I’ll think of something.’

The next afternoon, long before the cleanup was finished, I suggested to Lucy that we take a ride. This was something we usually did once or twice a month, so it was nothing out of the ordinary, and at just that point it made a pleasant break from the work at hand.

Like her mother, I had found Lucy’s adolescence difficult to handle. Unlike her mother I hadn’t resorted to confrontation, interrogation, mental torture techniques or general prohibitions. I could defend myself by claiming the delicate position of a stepfather’s status, but the truth was I had grown up under the thumb of a manipulative sweet-talker. Tubs could tell me how good it felt to punch someone’s face in, then describe an even finer pleasure: breaking a man’s spirit with my words. That was how he handled my first fistfight, age six. When I got a speeding ticket at the age of sixteen there was a story about a kid my age in a wheelchair because he liked to run his cars a little fast.

Then, the night I lost my virginity, as if he knew exactly where I had been and with whom, I got the story of a soldier who wasn’t careful where he put it and turned up with what could only be described as a welter of cauliflower-like boils on the tip of his manhood.

I liked Molly’s parenting far better. It gave a kid a chance. But we are products of others. I could not help myself. I told Lucy stories, and never a better time or place than on one of our rides.

When Lucy met her paternal grandparents for the first time she was six years old. She had known me for about a year, but I wasn’t real important, only her mother’s new husband. Her father, whom she had never even seen in a photograph, was the centre of her world.

So when her grandparents began showing her all kinds of pictures of their son riding all kinds of horses, everything from the childhood pony to the summer of his rodeo, it made a powerful impression. They had sold off their horses after Luke’s death, but the next time Molly and I took Lucy out to their place Grandpa Luke had bought a little pony for Lucy to ride whenever she visited. After that, there was no end to it.